It’s a Nonhuman World (We Just Live Here)

"Subjective responses to the environment make environmental literature a little different than, say, science writing," says Professor Ashton Nichols, whose nature writing class lets students explore the natural world and their place in it. Photo by Carl Socolow '77.

Between literature and science lies the
fertile world of nature writing

They look at questions connected to humans’ relationship
with nature (are we a part of it or distinct from it?), the disposition of
nature (is it benign or destructive?) and how and why we should preserve nature
in the face of climate change and the unstoppable march of humanity.

It’s an intellectual handful, so it’s not surprising that Katie
Mooradian ’16 (psychology, German) feels as if this unique cross-listing of Environmental
Studies 111 and English 101 might be a higher-level class in disguise:
“Considering it’s a 100-level course,” she says, “I’ve been impressed with not
only the breadth of knowledge but also the depth.”

Ahead of the
curve

The impressive dimensions of the course originate with its
architect, Ashton Nichols, professor of English and environmental studies and
the Walter E. Beach ’56 Distinguished Chair in Sustainability Studies, who has
been living at the intersection of nature and literature since he was a child.

“Growing up, I always had strong interest in and concern for
the natural world,” he says. “But I’ve always also been interested in
literature and language, so when I became a professor, it was English that
attracted me as a disciplinary study.”

With nature writing, and the larger environmental humanities
movement, Nichols found his sweet spot. And while in recent years other colleges
and universities have been adding courses in the field
of study, it’s one that Dickinson students have now been exploring through this course for over two
decades.

Accepting the challenge

Sam Bogan ’16 (biology) says American Nature Writing has
brought together his interests in science, literature and sustainability in a “balanced
and clear way,” but that doesn’t mean he’s been lulled into complacency.
“Despite that harmonious effect,” he says, “it’s also challenged some of my own
values and ideologies concerning subjects such as conservation, success and
travel.”

Nichols says the challenges presented by the course rarely
lead to uniform responses, as the syllabus—which includes works by Bill
McKibben, Henry David Thoreau and Nichols himself—forces students to debate
internally where they stand on a vast array of issues.

“I hope students emerge not with single-minded,
narrow-minded ways of viewing these questions,” he says, “but with a broader palette
of possible questions that they could bring to the literature they read and the
environmental issues they confront.”

New literary dimensions

With the focus not on strictly scientific works, Mooradian
appreciates teasing out the writers’ messages from their often poetic, allusive
prose. “There is something really powerful about conjuring your own perception
of the metaphor, prose and imagery you are being presented with,” she says.

“It’s not just reporting,” says Nichols. “There are
emotional responses to the subject matter. Thoreau wasn’t an environmentalist; he
explores the emotional responses to nature. This continues into the modern era
as well, with economic, racial and social-justice dimensions.”

These dimensions might be simply intellectual conversation
pieces if left unexplored and unchallenged. The process of unpacking it all and
making something useful is what Bogan sees as one of the course’s, and its
writers’, more powerful traits.

“The progress that comes from science is generated through
those acting upon scientific findings,” says Bogan. “The great American nature
writers we’ve read in class do just that. The wealth of ecological, natural
history, evolutionary and chemical knowledge that writers such as Rachel
Carson, Aldo Leopold and Henry David Thoreau understood before
writing their greatest works is what allowed them to inspire change.”

Through this interdisciplinary approach, Nichols hopes to
instill in his students what Thoreau—whom Nichols refers to as the foundational
element of the entire genre—has been instilling in readers for more than 150
years.

“If an appreciation for the nonhuman world can emerge
or be enhanced,” he says, “and even an understanding of that nonhuman world can
be improved by using language and thinking about language and writing, that can
only be a good thing.”